There are california quails living on my street. I see flocks of them on the road, and they are really jumpy and twitchy. I would be too, if I were edible and YUMMY. Every time I see them, I think about the little frozen quail carcasses I see in the freezer sometimes, in those hoity-toity grocery stores.

When it gets colder, and they get really fat and fluffy, they stand at the top of my driveway. I occasionally go outside so I can yell threats at them — mainly recipe ingredients I imagine they would go well with.

But this is the first year I’ve seen little kiddie quails, and they are SO CUTE. The little tufts on their heads are messy little equivalents of the cultivated pompadour on papa-quail. It’s as though grandpa-quail ruffled their little heads and told them how big they were growing.

And I saw them fly! Papa-quail walked them carefully down to the edge of the roof, and carefully flew over to the arbor to show them how it was done. Everyone else totally missed the arbor and flew into the lilac bush instead, splat!